


Lying Awake

by Random_ag



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Gift Fic, M/M, Post-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, i wish i knew, only mentioned - Freeform, theyre old men........ and joey is A Mess, whats happening?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28179111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: Joey sat upright on the bed staring at the wall with wide spirited eyes, his spine hunched forward and shoulders closed off. He looked like a ghost.
Relationships: Joey Drew/Malcolm McNamara





	Lying Awake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Parrot_Assbutt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parrot_Assbutt/gifts).



Malcolm stirred awake with a soft groan. It was dark. It was night. It was chilly. The blanket was pulled back. He tried to tug it back on himself. His eyes adjusted to the dark a little. Joey sat upright on the bed staring at the wall with wide spirited eyes, his spine hunched forward and shoulders closed off. He looked like a ghost.

“Joey?” he mumbled. He was tired. He was not completely awake yet.

Joey breathed in through his nose very loudly, as if sniffling.

“Joey, darling, what time is it?”

No response.

Joey breathed in again. Very loudly.

“Is something wrong?”

Joey did not turn to him.

“Is this allowed?” he asked very softly, “Am I allowed? Am I allowed to do this, to be with you? To be in bed with you, and in love with you, and to hold you and kiss you? Is this allowed? Can I do this?”

“Of course you can,” Malcolm reassured him still sleepily. A hand slithered under the other’s palm and caressed its back with his thumb, “Of course you can.”

“Am I allowed?”

“Of course you are.”

“It can’t be it. It can’t be it.”

“Joey, dearest, you can. Of course you can.”

“No, it can’t be it. It can’t be. Are you sure? I can’t be allowed. I can’t be allowed.”

“Of course you are allowed.”

Joey did not answer; he slumped on his partner, not facing him, and wrapped the lawyer’s warm, soft body in his pale arms.

“I never had someone before.” he murmured. “I never had someone like this before. I was an ugly kid. An ugly kid and an ugly man – don’t say I’m not. Don’t say it. I never had someone before. You know you are the first person to love me like this, right? I’ve never had someone love me like this before. Never. I am too ugly to have someone to love me like this before. I love you. I love you so much. So much. Can you hold me, please?”

Malcolm hugged him.

“Tighter. A little tighter, please.”

Malcolm hugged a little tighter.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I love you so much.”

“I love you too. I love you very much.”

They laid in silence for a moment. Malcolm exhaled softly and closed his eyes. Joey remained awake, staring into nothing.

Suddenly he raised himself with a violent jerking motion, as if a stream of lava had erupted beneath him and burnt his body into a molten agonizing monstrosity, fighting against the gentle hold he himself had requested and throwing the blanket off of his body. Before his rudely awoken beloved could beg for clarity he fell to the floor and scavenged feverishly under his bed, pale nails scraping against the floor, the bedframe and the walls until they hit a small cardboard box. They sunk in its sides, the lid above its entrails discarded with a desperate fury before it even left the sanctuary of the mattress’ shade, and then brought it up to sit next to the concerned rising body on the bed. Joey extracted a paper covered in inky letters and pressure marks deep enough to nearly tear the sheet and opened his mouth without a word; his eyes squinted and widened slightly as he tried to recognize the words he wanted to read aloud.

Malcolm grabbed his wrists gently and tried pulling them down from his line of sight: “You’ll strain your eyes like that…”

“I don’t want to die.” Joey answered to nobody. His gaze was still unfocused and his mouth struggled to close. “I don’t want to die, but I do. I do and I don’t want. I’m too scared. Too scared. So when I do, when I do I write. These… I, I die a lot in these. I die and somet… Sometimes I k… I kill, but not because I want, I… It’s, it’s easier, when the one who dies is bad, you understand? It’s easier, it feels - feels better, you understand? You understand…”

Green irises blurred, slurred and doubled in his vision.

“This is not a dream.” Malcolm whispered. He held his wrists in his palms, visibly afraid. “This is not a dream. You know it is not a dream, right? This is real. It is real, I am real. I am with you here and now.”

“You understand–”

“You will not wake up in a horrid nightmare. You’re awake right now, with me. This is real. You are safe. You are safe with me, right here, right now, awake. You know this, right? You know this is real, right?”

Joey allowed the paper to slip through his fingers; he reached out, a blind sleepwalker in search of an anchor, to hold the sides of the face he could not fixate on.

“I didn’t mean to worry you…” he whispered, his chest wrenching with a strangled sob.

Malcolm shifted his darling’s palm to place a silent kiss above it: “I want you to be alright.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I didn’t… I shouldn’t… I don’t… I don’t want to die, I didn’t… Please don’t, don’t worry…”

“I want you to be ok. Just want you to be ok. You know it’s not all a dream, right? That’s all I need to hear. All I need to hear.”

“I know. I know, I know. You’re real. You’re so real. You’re so, so real. So real. I love you. I love you. So much.”

“I love you too, dear. I love you very, very much. So very much. So terribly much.”

They held close, as close as they could. Malcolm pulled Joey into the bed and onto his lap; the paler man tightened his hug and buried his face in his boyfriend’s neck, ignoring how the shoebox was quietly lowered on the floor where it belonged.

“I wish we met sooner,” he murmured against the warm skin, “I wish we met in college and became friends, and maybe I could have made you kiss me and you could have figured things out sooner and we could have… Maybe all of this, it could have happened sooner.”

“We might have ended up not having Charlie with us,” the lawyer replied, carding a hand through nearly black hair, “I can’t think of a world without him. I know you can’t, either.”

“It doesn’t have to be immediately, just – maybe you could have still had Charlie with her, but then we met again and just, things just would have happened sooner - gotten away from her sooner, gotten Charlie here sooner, having… Having everything sooner…”

His face laid on the pillow. Grey eyes searched for green ones that seemed so, so, so far away.

“I just wanted everything to happen a little sooner.” he murmured.

Malcolm pressed a kiss to his forehead. Then another. Then another.

“We are here now,” he reassured him. “We are here, together. It may have taken a little time, but we’re here now.”

He held Joey close.

“I’m not letting go. I’m never letting go.”

They laid.

Close.

Malcolm’s eyelids fell upon his eyes.

His breath was even in the dark.

Joey stared.

His fingers clutched tight the fabric of his beloved’s pajamas.

He fell asleep at 6:53 A.M.


End file.
